UEL students cement reputation with national concrete design award

07 December 2016

Pair praised for design of roof-top swimming pool

Two students from the University of East London (UEL) have won first prize in the 2016 The Concrete Centre student competition, each receiving £750 prize money and plenty of kudos among peers and staff.

University student entrants from across the UK were briefed to design a roof-top swimming pool around a number of difficult design constraints.

MSc Structural Engineering students Samuel Latimer (pictured left) and Inna Nira (centre) were announced as the winners at a prize-giving ceremony held at the Institute for Structural Engineers international HQ in London.

Tutors, Dr Karl Micallef and Dr Ali Abbas, were so impressed with the quality of their course work that they encouraged them to enter the competition.

“It’s no surprise that these two promising and highly talented students have done so well winning this prestigious competition and we are rightly proud of their achievement,” said Dr Abbas.

“It’s always heartening and immensely rewarding when our students do so well and their efforts are recognised amongst their peers at a national level.”

Inna and Sam had previously undertaken group work on their master’s programme and scored the highest marks among the groups on the concrete design module.

Dr Abbas said, “Inna was one of our top students in her BEng class at UEL before joining the MSc course, and Sam’s desire to excel as a structural engineer and designer is evident.”

It was the first time UEL had entered students into the competition. The judges praised the pair's design for its simple and effective layout, using a split-level scheme for the car park and adding a lower half level to maximise the number of parking spaces.

Jenny Burridge, head of structural engineering at The Concrete Centre, said, “The judges were impressed as the load transfer was well understood, with good schemes that had been well thought through.”